Lydia Bushfield News

We're back! After an extended absence due to The Last Five Years (we directed it to boffo notices from our critical colleagues), The 2015 First Night Honors (which played to SRO crowds at Chaffin's Barn in September) and a sense of overwhelming malaise and ennui (we are ever so dramatic at times), BWW Nashville's Critic's Choice is back on the interwebs, offering you our insights and advice on the shows that are coming up and what you should try to find time to see - or to avoid at all costs, depending on our perspective.

Much has been made of late about a reviewer for the Wall Street Journal - by the name of Joanne Kaufman - who recently wrote a column in which she fairly chortled about regularly sneaking out of shows she was being paid to review in order to go home early, rather than sit through sub-par productions of questionable quality.

Inspired by all the seasonal festivities that abound, we asked people in the theater community to share their favorite things to see onstage during the run-up to Christmas…

You will not believe it! The last time we gave you a Music City Confidential (number seven), the London Olympics were winding up, LaToya Gardner and Kevin Mead were starring in Circle Players' Aida, Maggie Richardson and Cody Rutledge were headlining Xanadu at the Arts Center of Cannon County, and Music City was caught up in Nutty Professor fever! Today marks the return of Music City Confidential and we hope you'll be feeling particularly thankful for edition number 8.

Funny and irreverent, Chaffin's Barn's A Christmas Carol-featuring a witty new adaptation by Lydia Bushfield-gives audiences the perfect entree into the whole crazy-wonderful holiday season, replete with sentimental carols, fruitcake jokes, horrid Christmas sweaters and Warren Gore on his knees.

Lisa Marie Wright's impeccable timing and on-target comic performance-not to mention her cantilevered breastworks-are reason enough to book your favorite table at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre for Spreading It Around, a formulaic comedy about seniors spending their kids' inheritances that actually packs in a lot of laughs while pulling a minimum of punches in its two hours onstage.

Today the spotlight falls on Kim Thorton Nygren, who just recently ended a critically acclaimed run in Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's Dixie Swim Club, in which she played the randy, sexy Lexie. Kim's a fixture at ye olde dinner barn-not only because of her onstage performances in such shows as Rumors and 'Til Beth Do Us Part-but also because she works in the venerable venue's box office, dealing with audience members, inquisitive callers and the errant door-to-door salesman. In fact, she's so much a part of Chaffin's Barn that it's hard to imagine one without the other.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Brian Russell, who is one of the region's favorite actors despite the recurring rumor that he was in the cast of Our American Cousin on the night that Lincoln was shot. Today, Brian, who just concluded a critically lauded (which means I gave him a glowing review) run in Tennessee Repertory Theatre's Superior Donuts, adds the memories of her Barn experiences to the ones that we've been sharing of late to celebrate the 45th anniversary…

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress Lisa Marie Wright, who made her debut at the Barn in A Christmas Cactus in 1998, and most recently was onstage playing the Christine Penmark, the mom of the dastardly Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed at Street Theatre Company…

From the same writing team that created Frankly, My Dear-Duke Ernsburger and Virginia Cate-comes the latest comedy opening at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre: Elvis Has Left the Building. Running through March 18, the comedy is directed by Martha Wilkinson, artistic director of the company that is celebrating its 45th season of bringing theater to Nashville audiences.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress Joy Tilley Perryman, who this past holiday season starred in It's A Country Christmas, Carol. Today, Joy shares her memories of her Barn experiences to the ones that we've been sharing for two weeks to celebrate the 45th anniversary…

Now owned by the second-generation Chaffins-John and Janie, who were recognized among Nashville's Top Entrepreneurs of 2012 by Business Leader Magazine-The Barn has touched the lives of many, both onstage and off-, and today we launch our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress Nancy Allen, who first set foot on that magical levitating stage in a production of The Robber Bridegroom, directed by Rene Dunshee Copeland.

Try as they might, director Martha Wilkinson and her talented ensemble of actors just can't breathe enough life into a thin, tepid script to make it work onstage for audiences eager to be entertained. Virginia Cate and Duke Ernsberger's Elvis Has Left The Building is pleasant enough, with a promising premise, yet it falls flat despite the best efforts of the cast and crew putting forth the new production at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre.

From the same writing team that created Frankly, My Dear-Duke Ernsburger and Virginia Cate-comes the latest comedy opening at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre: Elvis Has Left the Building. Running February 16-March 18, the comedy is directed by Martha Wilkinson, artistic director of the company that is celebrating its 45th season of bringing theater to Nashville audiences.

From the same writing team that created Frankly, My Dear-Duke Ernsburger and Virginia Cate-comes the latest comedy opening at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre: Elvis Has Left the Building. Running February 16-March 18, the comedy is directed by Martha Wilkinson, artistic director of the company that is celebrating its 45th season of bringing theater to Nashville audiences.

Lovely and talented, with a slightly wicked streak that means she's just as much fun offstage as she is when she's onstage, actress/director/playwright Lydia Bushfield is a Nashville theater treasure, who's been part of the local scene so long that most people assume she was born and bred her. Fact is, she's not. Instead, she's one of the many talented people who've found themselves transported and transplated to Music City USA, pursuing their artistic bliss while entertaining audiences every time they set foot onstage.

Janie and John Chaffin and company have decked the halls and baked the cookies, so Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the venerable Nashville theatre celebrating its 45th year of bringing the best of Broadway to Music City USA, ushers in yet another holiday season with three shows offered for audiences of all ages.

Jennifer Richmond is one of the most fascinating people you could ever hope to meet. Seriously. She's smart and intuitive, to be certain, and her ever-inquisitive mind moves quickly from one subject to the next. In many ways, she is a modern-day Renaissance woman: She's good at very many things.

Nancy Allen's calendar has been rather full, of late, much to the delight of Nashville theater audiences who've been immensely entertained by her most recent performances - she recently starred (along with Jennifer Richmond and Melodie Madden Adams) in Lydia Bushfield's World War II-era musical revue I'll Be Seeing You at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre and now she's holding forth as the mad, bad and dangerous (with apologies to Lord Byron) to know Velma Von Tussle in Street Theatre Company's production of Hairspray. Later this month, she'll take to the stage of Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre as one of the assembled Fanny Brices in director Scott Logsdon's concert staging of Funny Girl, the first offering in the Keeping Scores concert series.

That Melodie Madden Adams, the actress and singer in question, gave a wonderful performance is unquestionable - and not unexpected - and her ease in becoming Margaret is a very good example of actress and character being perfectly in-sync: 'I have an insane love for anything vintage,' she explains, making the role perfect for her. In fact, when she's not onstage (she'll start rehearsals very soon for her role as Lenny in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart at Boiler Room Theatre), she's busily attending to the affairs of her online company, www.pinkcupcakevintage.com. And she thinks 'one of the most underestimated talents in this town is Billy Ditty.'